


I'm Supposed to Love You

by Skaboom



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexual Liam Dunbar, Dancing, Enemies to Lovers, Gay Pride, Gay Theo Raeken, Humans AU, M/M, Music, Romance, Theo and Corey are best friends, Thiam Pride 2020, Weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24891319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaboom/pseuds/Skaboom
Summary: When Liam and Mason attend a Pride event party together, and Mason finds himself falling hard for Corey Bryant, Theo and Liam, who have never gotten along well, attempt to set aside their differences for the sake of their best friends.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken, Side pairing: Corey Bryant/Mason Hewitt
Comments: 24
Kudos: 109





	I'm Supposed to Love You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xTarmanderx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xTarmanderx/gifts).



> This is my entry for the Thiam Pride 2020 event, and was written for my friend Tara!

**JUNE 1ST** **  
** **  
** June 1st at Sinema was one of their busiest nights of the year. Sure, the place was crowded for almost all of Pride Month, but they threw a giant party on the first to kick off a month of celebrations, and Mason had all but begged Liam to go with him.    
  
The boys had just finished up their senior year of high school, and they had one last summer ahead of them before they took off for college, and started down potentially separate roads. Mason was headed to UCLA in the fall, while Liam was headed to Indiana to play lacrosse at Notre Dame. It was, by far, the longest they would have ever been apart since they had met in preschool, and the boys planned to make this summer count.

“I don’t even know how to be a good wingman,” Liam said. “If I knew how to talk to guys, I would talk to guys for myself,” he pointed out.    
  
“You’re good at talking to girls,” Mason said as they walked. “It’s the same logic, I think.”   
  
“It’s different. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it’s different.”   
  
“Okay, well then you don’t have to talk to guys for you, you can talk to guys for  _ me _ . That way, you have nothing to lose, and your bisexuality is still all yours.”   
  
“You’re a good friend,” Liam said with a smile.    
  
He had come out to Mason a few months ago, confiding his bisexuality in his best friend. He had known that Mason would be accepting, and the conversation had been easy. It had gone well, but Liam wasn’t sure that he was quite ready to share it with the rest of the world yet.    
  
Liam had been going to pride events with Mason since they were 14 years old, but this was going to be his first Pride as an out bisexual man...even if he was only out to his mom, stepdad, and best friend. He wasn’t quite ready to focus on himself yet, and having Mason there to focus on? That would be a nice crutch. As it turned out, the slow realization of his bisexuality had been made a lot easier by having a gay best friend.    
  
“And now  _ you  _ can be a good friend, and help me talk to guys,” Mason said with a grin. “Especially if that Brett guy is there.”   
  
“I am never going to understand your obsession with Brett,” Liam said, laughing. “But if he’s there, I’ll introduce you. Now that we’re both graduated, I don’t think he’s going to care as much that we’re on separate sides of the lacrosse field.”   
  
Being kicked off of the Devenford Prep Lacrosse team, and out of the school in general, hadn’t been an easy experience for Liam, but having Mason at Beacon Hills High to lean on had definitely been helpful. Still, every time Beacon Hills played Devenford, Mason couldn’t help but drool over the academy’s star player, Brett Talbot. Liam didn’t get it, and he didn’t think that he ever would, but after literal years of keeping Mason at bay, Liam didn’t see the harm in introducing them.    
  
If Brett was there.   
  
“Okay, how do I look?” Mason asked as they approached the door.    
  
“You look good.”    
  
And he did. Mason had stuck to theme, with a very un-Mason like white t-shirt that read “ **Is it gay in here, or is it just me?** ” But he had paired the look with black skinny jeans that fit him flawlessly, and a pair of sleek black boots. His look was definitely more thought through than Liam’s outfit. He was wearing a black tank top that read “ **I like my whiskey straight, but my friends can go both ways** ,” as well as an old pair of jean shorts, fraying, and cut off at the knee. To finish the look, he had on classic beat up black Chuck Taylor’s. It had taken some needling on Mason’s part to get him into the novelty pride t-shirt, but it read ally as much as it did anything else, and the cover fee at Sinema was waived tonight if you were wearing pride gear.    
  
Liam had pointed out that Mason had spent more buying Liam the t-shirt than the cover fee at the door would cost, and Mason had come right back by reminding him that he could wear the shirt all month.    
  
“Okay, there are going to be a million guys in there tonight,” Mason said as they approached the door. “And  _ one  _ of them is going to be for me.”   
  
“That’s the spirit!”   
  
The line at the door wasn’t too long to get in, and even as they stood outside, they could hear the music pulsing through the door. Liam had been here with Mason several times, so he wasn’t nervous, but he wasn’t sure that, without Mason’s nudging, he would have spent his night here.    
  
“Hey, nice shirt.” The person manning the door grinned at Liam. They had a side shave and purple hair, and were proudly wearing a t-shirt that read “ **HUMAN** ” across the chest in rainbow writing.    
  
“Oh, thanks.” Liam nodded, offering his hand out for the entrance stamp before allowing Mason to pull him inside.    
  
It was a madhouse. There were people everywhere, pushed up against each other dancing, making out in the corner, making out on the dance floor, making out up against the wall, drinking, laughing, talking, and yeah. Liam was pretty sure that, if he wanted to, Mason would be able to find someone here tonight.    
  
“Oh damn, I’m too late!”   
  
Liam followed Mason’s gaze, noticing quickly what his best friend was talking about. Brett Talbot was indeed here. His shirt was off, and tucked into the back pocket of his impossibly tight jeans, but he was rocking a large rainbow heart temporary tattoo on his upper arm. He stood behind another man, hands gripping the guy’s hips as his back pressed against Brett’s front. You could call what they were doing dancing, but Liam was pretty sure it was little more than a precursor to sex.    
  
“Wait, holy shit, is that Josh Diaz?” Mason tugged Liam’s arm. “It totally is!”   
  
Sure enough, the guy dancing with Brett was wearing a black shirt with the writing “ **JOSH. Best. Gay. Ever,** ” emblazoned on the front, and even with his dark hair hanging over his face a bit, it was unmistakably Josh Diaz.    
  
Josh went to Beacon Hills with Mason and Liam, but they didn’t hang out. Josh mostly hung with a different crowd - the kids who smoked pot under the bleachers more than they sat on them to watch sporting events, the kind of kids who wore leather jackets and acted tough, whether they were or not. They were the kids that got labeled as ‘bad boys’ and ‘trouble makers,’ and wore those titles like badges of honor.    
  
They were definitely not the sorts of kids who hung out with Mason and Liam, and certainly not the type to hang out with preppies like Brett, so this was a truly unexpected sight.    
  
“I had no idea Josh was gay,” Mason said.    
  
“Me neither,” Liam admitted. “But apparently he’s the best gay ever.”   
  
“Come on. Let’s get a drink. There are a lot of hot guys here that aren’t Brett, and I’m gonna need some liquid courage if I’m going to talk to any of them.”   
  
“Sounds good.”   
  
Liam followed Mason to the bar, trying to focus on the idea of getting a drink, and not the fact that, if Josh was here, one of his best friends, Theo Raeken, probably was as well. Theo Raeken was the ringleader of the under-the-bleachers-pot-smoking crowd, and the bane of Liam’s existence. The guy took shots at Liam every chance he got, calling him a pretty boy, and a lax bro, and generally making snide remarks each time they passed each other in the hallway.    
  
Suffice to say, Liam was not a fan.   
  
That being said, there were about a million people here, and even if Theo was one of them, the odds of anything going down were slim.   
  
“You know who’s looking cute tonight?” Mason asked, leaning against the bar, taking a sip of his very pink cocktail. “Corey Bryant.”   
  
“Oh god.” Liam groaned, taking a swig from his own beer. “Do  _ not  _ go down that road, Mase.”    
  
Of all of the out kids at school, Corey Bryant was the quietest. Everyone knew he was gay, but everyone also knew that, if they so much as looked at him wrong, they’d have Theo Raeken to answer to, and no one with half a brain wanted start shit with Theo. 

In all honesty, Corey and Theo’s friendship was something of a mystery to Liam. Corey hung out with Theo’s crowd, but he didn’t seem like one of them, not to Liam, anyways. Corey was soft spoken, and quiet, and worked the drive-thru window at McDonald’s on nights and weekends. He never talked back to teachers, and as far as Liam knew, he’d never been in a fight, or caught with cigarettes in the boy’s bathrooms, or anything like that. Despite all of that, he was eternally at Theo’s side. Liam knew they lived in the same neighborhood, so maybe they had a friendship like his and Mason’s - old and lasting, but it still felt weird.    
  
The rest of the guys that Corey hung out with were dicks, but Corey had alway seemed pretty nice.    
  
Still, though, he was Theo’s best friend, and because of that, in Liam’s opinion, Mason could do  _ a lot _ better.   
  
“I’m serious.” Mason sighed, his eyes locked on the corner where Corey was standing.   
  
The young brunette was leaning up against the wall, drinking something from a tall glass, and scanning the crowd. He was wearing white jeans, and a black shirt with an image of a rainbow stag that said “ **Oh deer, I’m queer,** ” and if Mason hadn’t pointed him out, Liam would have missed him entirely. He wasn’t engaged in the sweaty hump-fest that was the dance floor, nor was he talking to anyone. He seemed content to just watch the group, and sip his drink, and whatever it was that Mason was seeing in him right now, Liam was missing.    
  
“I don’t know, he looks like he always does,” Liam said with a shrug.    
  
“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Mason said resolutely.    
  
“What? No you’re not!” Liam shook his head.    
  
“Yeah, I am.” He turned to the bartender. “Two shots of Hornitos, please.”   
  
“Oh, I don’t really want-”   
  
“Yeah, these are both for me.” Mason paid for the shots, and downed one right after the other. “Liquid courage. Wish me luck.”   
  
“Wait!” Liam sighed. They had been here for all of 15 minutes, and Mason was already going to leave him to fraternize with the enemy? Real nice. “I...good luck...I guess.”   
  
Liam rolled his eyes, but didn’t try to stop Mason as his friend headed over to where Corey stood in the corner. Instead, he took Mason’s spot leaning against the bar, and did his best to look around. There were people everywhere, a lot that he recognized, but plenty that he didn’t, and hardly anyone that he actually knew well. He saw one of the guys from the lacrosse team sandwiched between a guy and a girl, looking like he was having the time of his life on the dance floor. Not far from there, Josh had turned around to face Brett, and the two were now aggressively making out as they danced. One of Brett’s hands was up Josh’s shirt, and both of Josh’s hands were down Brett’s pants. It was bordering on obscene, but no one seemed to care, and Liam wasn’t going to be a one man hold out. Mason was still in the corner, talking to Corey, who, based on the fact that he had turned his body in to face Mason, and not the crowd, seemed to at least be willing to entertain the conversation. Liam was pretty sure that his friend would not be returning to him anytime soon. With a sigh, he finished off his beer and turned to the bartender to get another.    
  
If he was going to be by himself wallflowering it for the rest of the night, he was going to do it with a drink in hand.    
  
“What the hell does your boy think he’s doing?”   
  
Liam barely had a fresh beer in his hands before someone was at his side.    
  
Theo Raeken.    
  
He was wearing blue jeans, white Converse, a tank top that read “ **YES I AM A FUCKING HOMO** ,” in big, block letters, and a scowl that would intimidate a lot of people right out the door.   
  
“Hello to you, too,” Liam said, taking a sip of his beer.    
  
“Seriously. What the hell does he think he’s doing?”   
  
“Talking to Corey? I don’t fucking know.”   
  
“He shouldn’t be doing that,” Theo snarled.   
  
“What do you mean?” Liam didn’t understand what the other man was trying to say here, and the fact that he wasn’t the biggest fan of Theo to begin with didn’t really help matters much.    
  
“I mean there are a hundred other guys in here he could be flirting with. Corey’s off limits.”   
  
“He doesn’t look off limits to me,” Liam shot back. “He looks pretty into whatever Mason’s saying.”   
  
“Yeah, well, your boy is probably sweet talking him,” Theo snapped. “Telling him what he wants to hear.”   
  
“Okay, what the fuck, dude?” He frowned. “Are you like, in love with Corey or something?”   
  
“Fuck, no.” Theo shook his head.    
  
“Then why do you give a rip if Mason flirts with him or not?”   
  
“Because you popular rich kids are all the same.” Theo turned on Liam, looking him right in the eyes. “You say what you want to get what you want, and then once you do, you screw us over. Every single time.”   
  
“Mason isn’t like that!” Liam argued.    
  
“You need to get him away from Corey,” Theo said. “Before he toys with Corey’s heart and breaks it.”   
  
“Why are you being such a dick about this?” Liam pressed.    
  
“Because, idiot,” Theo sighed, exasperated. “Don’t you get it? Can’t you see it?” He gestured wildly to the corner where Corey and Mason were talking, smiling. Mason’s hand was on Corey’s wrist, and they both looked enamored of each other.    
  
“I see them hitting it off, actually,” Liam said.    
  
“Yeah, because Corey’s been hot for you boy Mason for like, ever, and Mason’s never noticed him until now.”   
  
“Oh.” Liam paused. “ _ Oh _ .”   
  
“Yeah. So drag him away before my boy gets his heart broken.”   
  
“How do you know that Mason is gonna break his heart?”   
  
“How do you know he’s not?”   
  
“What if Corey could be happy?” Liam challenged. “What if they actually like each other, and want to be together? Mason is a good guy. He’s not the ‘hit it and quit it’ sort.”   
  
“He’s had years to express interest in Corey, and he hasn’t.”   
  
“I don’t know what you want me to say, dude, but I’m not gonna go over there and drag my best friend away from a guy he’s hitting it off with. If you want to split them up, you’re gonna have to do it yourself.”   
  
“No.” Theo shook his head.    
  
“Then I guess we will just have to wait and see where this goes.” Liam looked at Theo. “You aren’t going to be able to protect Corey from everything, you know.”   
  
“I know that,” Theo retorted. “But I can try.”   
  
“He looks happy right now.”    
  
Liam gestured to where Mason and Corey stood. Mason had moved his hand from Corey’s wrist and Corey was smiling as their fingers laced together. It was flirty, and adorable, and Liam was definitely not going to be getting in the middle of that.    
  
“Fine.” Theo turned to Liam, his eyes narrow. “But if your boy breaks his heart-”   
  
“Down, boy.” Liam laughed. “They’re flirting. Relax. Go find someone to dance with. Blow off a little steam.”   
  
“Okay.” Theo nodded. “Just-”   
  
“I can’t control Mason, Theo,” Liam interjected. “And I wouldn’t if I could. Hackles down. Enjoy yourself. It’s Pride!”   
  
Theo didn’t say anything else, he merely turned away from Liam, and headed back into the crowd. Liam stayed where he was by the bar, wanting a close line on drinks, as he scanned the crowd. Brett and Josh were now up against a wall really going for it, and Liam had to look away before he saw something he would never be able to erase from his mind. In the corner, Mason and Corey were still holding hands, standing closer together, talking, and honestly, they were a sweet pair, cute in a way that Liam hadn’t been expecting.    
  
And then there was Theo. Liam hadn’t realized Theo was gay. It hadn’t been until he’d seen him here tonight, seen him in that tank top, that the thought had even occurred to him, but apparently, Theo was willing to make that statement now. It was funny how high school being over impacted people’s abilities to be themselves. Then again, maybe Theo had always been honest about it, Liam just hadn’t been around to see it. 

He found himself transfixed, his eyes locked on the other man as he danced with a tall guy. Theo wasn’t too much taller than Liam was, himself, but he was ripped, and there was something undeniably appealing about the way the jeans he was wearing framed the curve of his ass.    
  
He looked good, and Liam hated that.    
  
In an attempt to pull his focus from the other man, he turned back to Mason and Corey, who were now pressed together, swaying to the beat. Mason’s hands were on Corey’s hips, Corey’s arms were around Mason’s neck, and both of them were smiling. The pair of them didn’t have a lot of rhythm, but they were laughing with every misstep, and whether the dancing was good or bad didn’t seem to impact them at all. They seemed happy, and Liam was glad for that. Mason deserved it...even if it meant that Liam was going to be alone for the rest of the night.   
  
When he scanned the room again, Brett and Josh were nowhere to be seen, and Liam was grateful that they had gone off to find somewhere more private, and Theo? He was sucking face with the guy he had been dancing with. 

“Gross,” Liam muttered to himself, taking the final swig of his beer.    
  
“You know,” the bartender leaned in. “If you want him, you gotta actually let him know that.”   
  
“What?” Liam frowned. 

“That guy in the white tank? The one you were talking to earlier? The one you were just staring at?”   
  
“Yeah, ew, no, I don’t want him,” Liam said. “We were talking because our best friends are hitting it off, that’s all. I don’t give a shit about who he makes out with.”   
  
“Uh huh.” The bartender nodded, handing Liam another beer. “On the house. Maybe it’ll help you figure yourself out.”   
  
“Not cool, bro,” Liam said, though he accepted the drink. “I’m not even-”   
  
“Oh, honey.” The bartender shook his head. “You can play ally all you want, and if you’re not ready to come out, that’s fine, I won’t tell. You may be fooling some, but you’re not fooling me. You may have that butch guy look, but you’re not straight.”   
  
“No,” Liam sighed into the bottle. “I’m not. But he’s not my type.”   
  
“You sure about that?” The bartender asked. “‘Cause to me, he kinda looks like everyone’s type.”   
  


“You too?” Liam rolled his eyes. “He’s a dick.”   
  
“That does not matter,” the man admitted. “At all.”   
  
“Well, it matters to me,” Liam argued.    
  
“Sure it does.” With a wink, the bartender went to help another customer, leaving Liam in a far worse mood than he had been before.    
  
Why on earth had he agreed to come here with Mason? The guy clearly didn’t need a wingman, and now Liam was alone, sipping at yet another beer, while he waited for the night to end.   
  
All things considered, it wasn’t that bad. He made conversation with some people he knew from school, had a few drinks, and got to watch his best friend absolutely crush it with a guy. He kept his gaze away from Theo for the rest of the night, not wanting to fuel the bartender’s crazy thoughts any more than necessary, and when Mason finally made his way back over to him, asking him permission to leave with Corey, Liam just smiled and told him he’d be fine.    
  
He walked home by himself, and crawled into his bed, still fairly drunk. He knew that the night would have been different if he were out, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. He was just happy that Mason had met someone, and eager for the rest of the summer.    
  
**  
** **JUNE 6TH** **  
** **  
** As it turned out, the whole Mason and Corey thing had not been a one night stand, and Liam had all but lost track of his best friend for the past five days. Mason and Corey had gone from barely acquaintances to boyfriends in record time, and Mason was trying his best to split his time between his best friend, and his new boyfriend.   
  
The fact that, during the summer, Corey was working full time at the McDonald’s gave Liam and Mason some time together, and Liam was grateful for that.    
  
“I think I’m craving fries,” Mason said as he drove them home from the movie they had just seen.    
  
“I think you’re craving  _ Corey _ ,” Liam said with a teasing smile.    
  
“Eh.” Mason shrugged. “Both, maybe.”   
  
“Let’s go get fries,” Liam said. He wasn’t going to get in the way of his best friends’ happiness, that was for sure.    
  
“Awesome.”   
  
Mason pulled into the drive through, and when the window opened so that they could receive their fries, Corey’s face lit up.    
  
“Hi, baby!” He leaned out of the window, kissing Mason as best he could with the distance between the car and the restaurant.   
  
“Hey.” Mason smiled, reaching out to take the bag. “Just wanted to come see you, say hi.”   
  
“Hi.” Corey blushed.    
  
“Come over after work?” Mason asked.    
  
“Definitely.” Corey nodded.    
  
“See you soon.” Mason shot him a wink, and they pulled out, making room for the customer behind them.    
  
“So what’s the deal with you two anyways?”   
  
“I don’t know.” Mason shrugged as he pulled over so that they could eat. “Something just clicked the other night at Sinema, he’s...perfect.”   
  
“So you’re not gonna like, kick him to the curb once summer’s over?”   
  
“God, no.” Mason frowned. “I would never do that, what the hell, Liam?”   
  
“Nothing, it’s just...Theo came up to me at Sinema that night and he wasn’t super thrilled with the whole you and Corey thing. He’s really protective. He got all up in my face about it.”   
  
“I mean, Corey’s got some...issues,” Mason shrugged. “But I would never hurt him. I really, really like him.”   
  
“Good.” Liam smiled, taking a few fries and shoving them into his mouth.    
  
“Yeah.” Mason smiled. “It is good. It’s really, really good. We’re going for ice cream tomorrow. You should come with us, get to know him a little bit.”   
  
“You sure?” Liam asked.    
  
“Yeah. I think it’s good for him to know my best friend.”   
  
“Okay, cool. Just say when and where.”   
  
  
**JUNE 7TH**   
  
By the time Liam arrived at  _ Scoops  _ ice cream parlor, Mason and Corey were already seated on the same side of a booth, sharing a sundae. Liam sighed, shaking his head, though he was smiling. Mason waved to him as he saw Liam enter, and Liam gestured towards the ice cream counter, letting his friend know that he would be over once he had his cone.    
  
“Hi, welcome to  _ Scoops _ , how many scoops would you li- oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”    
  
Liam looked up and found himself face to face with Theo Raeken. He couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter. Theo looked utterly ridiculous in the  _ Scoops  _ uniform. He was wearing a white button down and red bowtie with black slacks, and red and white checkered suspenders. To complete the look, he was wearing a white Soda Jerk hat with red lining, and a name tag that read  _ Theo  _ in a scripted font. He looked like he had jumped straight out of the  _ Pleasantville _ , and Liam was unable to look away.   
  
“Shut up,” Theo snarled. “Not all of us have a stepdad to pay our way through life. Some of us actually have to work.”   
  
“Hey, I didn’t say anything!” Liam said, raising his hands defensively.    
  
“You didn’t have to,” Theo shot back.    
  
Liam was pretty sure that he had never seen anyone in a Soda Jerk get up look so angry. It was a hilarious sight, but he did his best not to laugh. After all, it wasn’t like Theo chose this outfit, it was a job, and he was right. Liam shouldn't make fun of that.    
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Liam said.    
  
“Can I get you something, or are you just here to gawk?”   
  
“Jesus, relax! I’m here to meet Mason and Corey.”   
  
“Of course you are.”   
  
“Hey, whatever you’re angry about isn’t my fault,” Liam snapped back. “I’m just trying to get some ice cream.”   
  
“Fine.” Theo put on a very forced smile, and straightened his posture. “How many scoops would you like today?”   
  
It was a little scary, the fake happy tone of voice that Theo used, the smile on his face - it all felt off, deeply unsettling in a way that Liam wouldn’t have expected.    
  
“Uh, can I get one scoop of rocky road in a cake cone?”   
  
“What are you, five?” Theo snorted, grabbing the cone nonetheless and beginning to expertly scoop the ice cream.    
  
“Hey, cake cones don’t drip, what do you want from me?”   
  
“$2.75,” Theo replied, handing the cone over.    
  
Liam rolled his eyes, but handed him $3, dropping the quarter he got back into the tip jar. Theo said nothing, and turned to help the next customer as Liam walked over to sit with Mason and Corey.    
  
“Theo works here?” he asked.    
  
“Yeah.” Corey nodded. “He needed a job, and Tracy has worked here for years, so it was easy for her to get him the work...and I mean, who am I to say no to a friends and family discount?”   
  
“Fair.” Liam nodded, taking a lick of his ice cream. Theo had definitely not given  _ him _ any sort of discount, but he had not been expecting him to.   
  
Liam sat across from Mason and Corey in the booth, and true to their word, they got to talking. Liam learned that Corey planned to attend UCLA in the fall, just like Mason, as if they couldn’t be any more sickeningly sweet. He also learned that Corey was interested in creative writing, and hiking, and that he preferred dogs to cats, but loved all animals at the end of the day. He learned a lot of things about Corey that he hadn’t been expecting, and it was nice to see that his best friend was falling for someone who was kind. The way that Corey looked at Mason was the way anyone would want their best friend to be looked at, and it made Liam feel good.    
  
At least until they cuddled up in the corner of the booth and got lost in each other, leaving Liam with the dregs of his ice cream cone, feeling like a third wheel. 

He found himself looking around the ice cream parlor. It was loud, and there were families everywhere, kids playing and laughing, but he couldn’t help but be drawn to the way that Theo was leaning over the counter, a smile on his face - this one genuine, as he handed a small sample spoon to a toddler. There was a gentleness to Theo in that moment that Liam had never seen before, and he felt the corners of his own mouth curve up into a slight smile as he watched. The little girl seemed to like the ice cream, because she nodded, and Theo smiled, reaching down to give her a high five before scooping her a kid’s cone.    
  
Liam kept watching Theo, the way that he was with the kids, with everyone, really. The smile that he had gotten when he had asked for his cone had been fake, but the ones that Theo flashed every other customer? Those seemed real, and as surprising as it was to Liam, it seemed like Theo might actually  _ enjoy  _ this job _. _ _  
_ _  
_ “Oh Liiiiam, earth to Liam!” Mason reached out, smacking him in the shoulder.    
  
“Huh?” Liam turned back around.    
  
“Dude,” Mason shook his head. “What are you doing?”   
  
“Nothing, I was just giving you two space to, you know,” he gestured at them.    
  
“Oh.” Corey blushed. “Sorry.”   
  
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Liam said quickly.    
  
“Can I get by?” Corey asked. “I have to go to the bathroom.”   
  
“Sure thing.” Mason slid out of the booth, letting Corey out, watching his boyfriend walk away. The second that Corey was out of sight, however, he turned to Liam. “Dude.”   
  
“What?” Liam asked.   
  
“You were hardcore staring at Theo.”   
  
“I was not!” Liam argued. “I was averting my eyes from the softcore porn that was happening in this booth!”   
  
“A few little kisses is hardly porn, softcore or otherwise.” Mason rolled his eyes. “But you’re deflecting.”   
  
“There’s nothing to deflect!”   
  
“Huh.” Mason leaned back, shaking his head. “Sure there isn’t.”   
  
“There’s not!”   
  
“Hey, whatever you say!”   
  
“I say there’s nothing!”   
  
“Nothing what?” Corey asked, tilting his head to the side as he returned to the table.    
  
“Just nothing,” Liam said quickly.    
  
“Okay then.” Corey shrugged and climbed back into the booth, pressing himself up against Mason. “Miss me?”   
  
“You know it.” Mason leaned in, pressing a kiss to Corey’s cheek.    
  
“Ugh, gross.” Liam wrinkled his nose.    
  
“One day, when you are as blissfully happy as we are,” Mason said. “You’ll understand.”   
  
“Sure I will.” His tone was dripping with sarcasm, though, because he wasn’t sure that he was capable of being that person, the one pressed up against someone else in the booth of an ice cream parlor, not a care in the world outside of their relationship. It just wasn’t the way he operated. 

When they left the ice cream shop to head to the lake, Mason and Corey hand in hand, Liam focused hard on keeping his gaze ahead of him. If he turned back, he might see Theo smiling again, and he couldn’t risk Mason thinking that he saw something that he didn’t.    


  
**JUNE 9TH** **  
**   
“So, when are we gonna revisit this whole you staring at Theo at  _ Scoops _ thing?” Mason asked.    
  
He and Liam were sitting on Liam’s floor, leaning up against the foot of Liam’s bed as they played  _ Call of Duty: Modern Warfare _ .    
  
“There’s nothing to revisit,” Liam said, keeping his eyes glued to the screen.    
  
“Look, you have to know that I know you better than that, right?” Mason asked. “I’m not an idiot, I know when my best friend is staring at someone.”   
  
“Can you just let it go, please?”   
  
“Nope.” Mason shook his head. “Because this is the first time you’ve shown interest in an actual, real guy that’s not Tom Hardy since you came out to me, and I do not wanna miss it.”   
  
“I’m not showing interest in him!” Liam sighed. “I just thought he looked ridiculous in the  _ Scoops _ outfit, that’s all.”   
  
“Huh.” Mason nodded. “Okay, cool. I thought we’d sort of gotten past the whole you trying to lie to me thing, because you suck at it.”   
  
“I’m not lying.”   
  
“You literally just lied again by saying you weren’t lying.”   
  
“What do you want from me?” Liam asked, his tone exasperated.    
  
“Oh, I don’t know. The truth would be nice.”   
  
“Why are you pushing this?”   
  
“Because I want you to be happy.”   
  
“Oh, and you think Theo Raeken is gonna make me happy?” Liam scoffed.    
  
“I think he’s super fucking hot, and I think you were super fucking checking him out,” Mason said.    
  
“Well, there’s more to making someone happy than being hot.”   
  
“So you admit he’s hot.”   
  
“Jesus, Mason, was this a fucking trap?”   
  
“I don’t know. Maybe.”   
  
“Yes, fine, objectively speaking, Theo Raeken is a good looking dude.”   
  
“Uh huh.” Mason nodded. “And  _ subjectively _ ?”   
  
Liam sighed, mashing his controller buttons, firing his virtual weapon, and focusing on the game to buy him a little time before he felt that he had to answer.    
  
“And...subjectively, yeah, okay, he’s a good looking dude.”   
  
“I knew it.”   
  
“You don’t know shit.”   
  
“I know  _ everything _ .”   
  
“Mason…”   
  
“Look,” Mason paused the game and set his controller down. “I’ve been talking to Corey a lot.”   
  
“Makes sense, you’re dating.”   
  
“Shut up.” Mason cut Liam off. “But we’ve talked about a lot of stuff, and he’s told me a lot of things about Theo. I think you’ve misjudged him, Liam.”   
  
“I think he’s misjudged me,” Liam countered.    
  
“Maybe.” Mason shrugged. “But I can’t do anything about that. I can talk to you about this. When you were staring at him the other day, you had a smile on your face.”   
  
“He looked dumb. It was funny.”   
  
“Stop being mean,” Mason said. “I’m being serious.”   
  
“I think you’re just seeing something you want to see,” Liam said. “And I’m not sure why you want to see it, but…”   
  
“Alright, alright.” Mason unpaused the game. “I’ll drop it.”   
  
And he did, but that didn’t change the fact that, once he left and Liam was alone again, his thoughts did, in fact, drift to the smile on Theo’s face when he hadn’t realized Liam had been looking.    
  
  
**JUNE 12TH**   
  
As Liam headed home from the grocery store, a paper bag full of last minute items that his mom had asked him to get for dinner in his arms, he paused. He was heading past  _ Scoops _ , and there, behind the dumpsters, leaning up against the brick wall of the building, was the unmistakable Theo Raeken.    
  
Theo was still wearing his uniform, though the suspenders were undone and hanging down, and the bowtie was untied and hanging around his neck. His hat was tucked into the back pocket of his pants, and he was doing something on his phone, still oblivious to Liam. Liam hesitated, then approached.    
  
“That’s a look,” he said.    
  
“Here to make fun of me, Dunbar?” Theo sniped.    
  
“No, no, sorry.” Liam shook his head. “Just walking home, thought I’d say hey.”   
  
“Since when do we say ‘hey’?” Theo asked.    
  
“I mean, I just thought, you know, since Mason and Corey started dating, it might be nice if we tried to get along. You know, for them?”   
  
“It’s a summer fling,” Theo said.    
  
“I don’t think that it is.” Liam bit his lip. “I’ve seen Mason with guys before. It’s never been like this.”   
  
Theo paused, tucking his phone into his pocket.    
  
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Corey hasn’t been like this before, either.”   
  
“I don’t think that this is one of those things that’s gonna go away just because we don’t love it.”   
  
“As much as it pains me to say this, I think you’re probably right.” Theo sighed. “So, what? We see each other, we say hey?”   
  
“Yeah.” Liam shrugged. “I mean, just general...politeness should do it, right?”   
  
“Maybe.” Theo nodded.    
  
“I mean, we could...try hanging out,” Liam said.    
  
“Oh god.” Theo wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know about that.”   
  
“Yeah, no, me neither.” Liam reached up, raking a hand through his hair. “I just sort of have a lot of free time on my hands. I was planning to spend the summer with Mason, and, well, he’s spending every possible moment with Corey now.”   
  
Theo hesitated, staying silent for a while before speaking again.    
  
“Yeah, I know the feeling.” He stepped forward, holding his hand out. “Give me your phone.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Jesus, I’m not gonna steal it, I’m gonna put my number in.”    
  
“Oh.” Liam reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, giving it over to Theo.    
  
“Okay.” Theo input his contact information. “Tomorrow night. Corey isn’t working, so he and Mason will want to hang out, you can come over. Text me your number and I’ll text you the address. We can have a few beers and pretend we like each other or whatever.”   
  
“Sounds good.” Liam slipped his phone back into his pocket.    
  
“Now scram, Dunbar,” Theo said. “Desperation’s not a good look on you.”   
  
“I’m not desperate! I’m just walking home from the store!”   
  
“Sure.” Theo laughed, pulling his suspenders back up, and beginning to re-do the bowtie. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”   
  
“Uh, yeah.” Liam nodded. “See you tomorrow.”   
  
He started back home again, feeling a twisting in his stomach. He and Theo had never gotten along, but he hadn’t expected that he would be this nervous just to hang out with the guy.    
  
  
**JUNE 13TH**   
  
Liam was hesitant as he parked his car outside of the address Theo had given him. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, but he couldn’t let that get to him. He knew that Theo would never let him hear the end of it if he did. With a sigh, he turned off the engine, and got out of the car. In the backseat, he had a six pack, not wanting to show up empty handed, but he didn’t know Theo’s parents. He didn’t know how they would react if he were to show up at the door with beer, so for the time being, he left it in the car.   
  
He walked up to the door and knocked. There was no answer, and he shifted, waiting for almost a full minute, wondering if he should knock again, when someone spoke behind him.    
  
“Hey, Dunbar.”   
  
“Holy shit!” Liam jumped, then turned to find himself face to face with Theo.    
  
Theo had a grin on his face, and he was laughing, clearly amused by the fact that he had scared Liam.    
  
“Jumpy little thing, aren’t you?” Theo teased.    
  
“You snuck up on me,” Liam pointed out, wondering if this was a mistake. Theo was a jerk, and he was continuing to prove that.    
  
“Couldn’t help it. I was just heading in from the garage and there you were. Low hanging fruit. Mea culpa.”   
  
“I brought beer,” Liam said, deciding to change the subject.    
  
“Is...it invisible?” Theo asked, raising an eyebrow.    
  
“Uh, no,” Liam shook his head. “It’s in the car.”   
  
“Well, that’s a stupid place for it,” Theo said with a smile.    
  
Unlike the smile that Theo had flashed Liam in the ice cream shop, this one was real, and Liam found himself thrown off by it. He was pretty sure that Theo had never smiled at him. Smirked? Sneered? Laughed at? Yes, but smiled? No.    
  
“Uh, yeah.” Liam reached up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just thought your parents might-”   
  
“My parents aren’t home.”   
  
“Oh.” Liam nodded. “Well cool then, I’ll just go get it?”   
  
“Good call.”    
  
Liam headed back to his car, grabbing the six pack, and walking back up to the now-open front door.    
  
“Come on,” Theo said. “Let’s go to my room.”   
  
Liam followed Theo into the single-story house, to a room in the back. It was small, and Liam was pretty sure that it was perfectly square. There was a mattress and box spring in one corner, though Liam wasn’t sure that you could really call it a bed. The walls were papered with posters of bands, some that Liam had heard of, most that he hadn’t, and pictures of Theo and his friends. The room was surprisingly clean, with an old looking dresser pressed up against one wall, and a desk at the other. A beat up acoustic guitar was leaning up against the desk, and there were several picks and some guitar strings on the top of the closed laptop that sat on it. There was an old school boom box on top of the dresser with an auxiliary cord sticking out of it, and the bookshelf next to the closet door was crammed to bursting with CDs and tapes.    
  
“Thaaaank you.” Theo grabbed one of the beers and popped the top off with a bottle opener from his key ring before flopping onto the bed. He kicked his shoes off, and leaned up against the wall, sitting with his legs straight out, ankles crossed.    
  
Carefully, Liam set the six pack on the desk next to the closed computer and removed one of the bottles himself.    
  
“Catch.”   
  
Theo tossed his keys, bottle opener and all, to Liam, and by some miracle, his lacrosse reflexes kicked in, and he actually managed to catch them.    
  
“Oh, nice,” Theo said.    
  
“Yeah.” Liam shrugged and opened his own beer, sitting down in the wooden chair by Theo’s desk. “So…cool room.”   
  
“This piece of shit?” Theo looked around the room, though once again, a smile was present. “Yeah, it is pretty cool, isn’t it?”   
  
“Mhmm.” Liam nodded, and took a long pull of his beer, not sure what else to do.    
  
Theo looked at Liam, one eyebrow raised. He lifted his beer to his lips, keeping his gaze on the other man as he took a lengthy sip.    
  
“Okay,” Theo said as he finished. “This is garbage.”   
  
“Excuse me?”   
  
“This? It’s garbage. So here’s what we’re gonna do.” he got up and opened the closet door, pulling out a bong. “We’re each gonna hit this, put on some music, and if we still hate each other at the end of it, we tried. That’s the best Corey and Mason can ask for, right?”   
  
Liam raised an eyebrow, surprised by how blunt Theo was about the whole thing, but he nodded. It wasn’t like he’d never smoked weed at parties before, and he knew that Theo smoked - everyone did. He just hadn’t expected Theo to cut right to the chase like that.    
  
“Sounds good.” Liam nodded.    
  
He sat back in the desk chair, sipping at his beer while Theo packed the bong.    
  
“Guests first,” he said, walking over to the desk and handing it to Liam along with a lighter.    
  
“Cool.” Liam set the bong on the desk in front of him and leaned over it. He raised the lighter to the glass bowl, his mouth covering the top as the chamber filled with smoke. He set the lighter aside as it began to burn the pad of his thumb, and quickly removed the bowl and stem, sucking in all of the smoke from the chamber.    
  
“Holy shit, dude,” Theo said, eyes wide. “That’s insane!”   
  
Liam turned away from Theo and breathed the smoke out.    
  
“Lacrosse lungs.” He grinned.    
  
“Okay, good to know they’re good for something.” Theo nodded, clearly impressed. “Respect.”   
  
“You’re up.” Liam passed the bong and the lighter.

He watched as Theo added a little more to the bowl and bent over the desk, lighting it, taking a pretty sizable rip himself.   
  
***   
  
“Okay, but dude. This is when they found their sound. Sure,  _ Take This To Your Grave _ and  _ Cork Tree  _ are great, but _ Infinity on High _ ? This is when they stopped being like, classic punk rock and became  _ Fall Out Boy _ .”    
  
Theo was lying on his back on the carpet, his legs resting on the bed, his knees bent over the mattress. Liam sat next to him, his back resting against bed as Patrick Stump’s voice filled the room from Theo’s old boombox.    
  
“I always kinda thought you were too cool for  _ Fall Out Boy _ ,” Liam admitted.    
  
“I always kinda thought you were too stuck up and preppy for  _ Fall Out Boy _ ,” Theo countered.    
  
“You’re right, though,” Liam said.    
  
“About you being too preppy?” Theo laughed. “I know I am."

“No, shut up.” Liam rolled his eyes. “About this being when they found their sound. Like the lyrics were always there, but something about this album changed, you’re right, and it’s like...when they went from being something good to something really special.”

“Exactly.” Theo nodded, closing his eyes. “Fuck, it’s just so fucking good.”   
  
“It really is.” Liam smiled, enjoying the way he felt the music pounding in his chest. Maybe it was because he was drunk, high, or both, but the words felt vivid, meaningful in a way he wasn’t used to.    
  
“ _ Best friends, ex-friends to the end, better off as lovers _ ...” Theo muttered along with the song.   
  
“ _ And not the other way around _ ,” Liam finished.   
  
Theo opened his eyes, looking up at Liam. His eyelids were heavy, and there was an easy smile on his face.    
  
“Better off as lovers,” he said softly, grey eyes looking right into Liam’s blue ones.    
  
“And not the other way around,” Liam whispered.    
  
“Fuck it.”    
  
Theo reached up, grabbing a fistful of Liam’s t-shirt, pulling him down into a kiss.    
  
It was awkward, Liam’s body bent sideways as he kissed Theo back. He tried to set his beer bottle down, but he didn’t have a good angle, and it toppled over, spilling onto the carpet of the bedroom.    
  
“Oh shit,” Liam said.    
  
“Leave it.”   
  
Theo pulled Liam back down, his hand still fisted in the t-shirt. Liam moved, straddling Theo’s hips so that he could lean down over him and kiss him properly, desperately, frantically. Within moments, Theo’s hand released the fabric, and he opted instead to slide both hands up Liam’s shirt, running them up and down Liam’s sides. Liam’s own hands were resting on either side of Theo’s head, palms leaving an imprint on the carpet.    
  
He was shocked by how good of a kisser Theo was. His lips were soft, and unlike a lot of the people Liam had kissed, he knew how to use his tongue. That, paired with the electricity that Liam practically felt transferring from Theo’s fingertips to Liam’s skin was enough to drive him a little bit wild.    
  
_ I’m a preacher, sweating in the pew… _ _  
_ _  
_ The music kept playing, the song switching, and Theo kicked back from the bed a little, sliding along the floor of his bedroom, his body elongating to give them more space. Theo had always been attractive, objectively, but this wasn’t objective, and as Theo bunched Liam’s shirt in his hands, pulling it off effortlessly over Liam’s head, Liam wondered why it had taken him so long to realize how fucking  _ sexy _ Theo Raeken really was.   
  
“Fuckin’ lacross body.” Theo barely muttered the words as he yanked Liam back down, their bodies pressed together.    
  
Theo reached for Liam, the tips of his fingers pressing into Liam’s back. The groan that Liam let out only fueled Theo’s fire, and he ran his hands down Liam, nails just scraping at Liam’s skin. Liam slid his own hands up Theo’s shirt, and Theo leaned up, allowing Liam to remove the shirt and toss it to the side.    
  
“Whoa.” Liam’s eyes widened as he caught sight of Theo’s torso for the first time.   
  
He had known that Theo was muscular, his arms had always been very visible, especially in the tank top from the other night, but he had a couple of abs, and a toned torso. Even so, that wasn’t what drew Liam’s focus. Down the center of Theo’s chest was a long scar. It was healed, but very noticeable. Perhaps even more noticeable was the tattoo just to the left of it - a gorgeous outline of a white lily.    
  
“What’s this?” Liam asked, reaching out, tracing a finger down the scar.    
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Theo said, grabbing Liam’s wrist and pulling his hand away.    
  
Before Liam had the chance to object, Theo had flipped them over, and Liam lay on his back, wrists pinned to the carpet by Theo’s strong hands. His heart was racing as he looked up at the other boy.    
  
For a second, they just stared at each other, both breathing heavy, Theo holding Liam in place before finally, Theo leaned back down, kissing Liam again, and Liam said nothing more. They wrestled on the floor, not realizing that  _ Infinity on High  _ had given way to  _ Folie  _ _ à _ _ Deux.  _ Soon Theo’s hands were at Liam’s belt, and Liam’s fingers were unbuttoning Theo’s jeans, and not long after that, they were naked. Theo fumbled for his desk, opening one of the drawers to pull out a condom and lube.    
  
“You good?” Theo asked as Liam watched him.    
  
“Yeah,” Liam breathed.    
  
“Have you ever had sex with a guy before?”    
  
“No.” Liam lay back on the floor, looking at Theo. “You ever had sex on your bedroom floor before?”   
  
“No.” Theo grinned, leaning back over Liam, kissing him deeply. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’ll take care of you.”   
  
“Not worried,” Liam breathed between kisses. “Just do it.”   
  
***   
  
“Jesus.” Liam gasped, lying back on the floor, staring up at Theo’s ceiling, chest heaving.    
  
“Jesus good?”   
  
“Jesus good.”   
  
“You alright?” Theo pulled the condom off and tied it, tossing it at the wastebasket by the bookshelf, and just narrowly missing.   
  
“Yeah.” Liam nodded, barely able to get the word out.    
  
“Good.” Theo reached up to the bed, pulling the comforter off of it and bringing it over them.    
  
Instinctively, Liam moved closer to Theo, resting his head on the other man’s chest. They were both covered in sweat and the like, but both too fucked out to immediately do anything about it.    
  
“You?” Liam asked.    
  
“Me what?”   
  
“You good?”   
  
“Dude, do you even have to ask that?” Theo laughed.   
  
“Fair enough.”   
  
Liam leaned in, and Theo tilted his head to the side, meeting him in a kiss. This one was slower, less desperate than the frantic making out that had led to them screwing on Theo’s floor. Liam let his eyes drift shut, opening only when Theo pulled back.    
  
“We really should wash off. It’ll be a bitch if things...crust.”   
  
“Wow, way to ruin a moment,” Liam said, rolling his eyes.    
  
“Oh, were we having a moment?” Theo teased.    
  
“Yeah, we were, you ass.”    
  
“My bad.” Theo laughed and pushed the blanket off of them before getting up. He reached a hand down for Liam, helping the other man to his feet. “Shower?”   
  
“Will your parents mind?”   
  
“They’re not home, remember?”   
  
“I mean, they weren’t, but-”   
  
“They’re gone all night. My dad had a conference in Reno, and mom went with.”   
  
“Oh.” Liam smiled. “Then yeah. Shower.”   
  
  
**JUNE 18TH**   
  
After that first night, they slid into a pattern. When Mason was with Corey, Liam was with Theo. They hung out at Theo’s place when his parents weren’t home, or Theo snuck in Liam’s bedroom window if they were. They talked a little, but mostly, they listened to music, got stoned, drunk, and when they were both just buzzed enough to pretend it didn’t matter, they fucked.    
  
“Okay,” Liam sighed, leaning back against the wall in Theo’s bedroom. “Play something for me.”   
  
“What?” Theo frowned.    
  
“The guitar.” Liam gestured to where the acoustic guitar was, still leaning up against the desk as it had been the first night Liam had been in Theo’s room.    
  
“No.” Theo shook his head.    
  
“What do you mean ‘no,’ do you not know how?”   
  
“Oh fuck you.” Theo rolled his eyes.    
  
“You literally  _ just _ did. Now come on. Guitar.”   
  
“I’m not that good.”   
  
“I don’t give a shit. Come on.”    
  
“No.”   
  
“I’m gonna leave if you don’t,” Liam threatened.    
  
“Fine by me, I already got what I wanted from you.”   
  
“Ass.” Liam reached for one of the pillows, hitting Theo with it. “Play something.”   
  
“Will it get you to shut up?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Fine.”    
  
Theo got up, grabbing the guitar. He sat down next to Liam, back pressed against the wall. He pulled the sheet over his lap and rested the guitar on his thigh. He began to strum, but stopped quickly, reaching up to tune one of the knobs. Liam eased down in the bed so that he was propped against the pillows, watching as Theo began to strum again.    
  
“Clapton?” Liam smiled as he recognized the chords to  _ Layla _ .   
  
“Good ear,” Theo said.    
  
“You gonna sing?”   
  
“Nah.” Theo shook his head. “I don’t sing.”   
  
“You said you were shit at guitar, and that was bullshit.”   
  
“I don’t sing. Now hush. You said you’d shut up if I played, or should I stop?”   
  
“No, no.” Liam shook his head. “Shutting up now.”   
  
He lay there, watching as Theo strummed his way through the song, transitioning from  _ Layla  _ to  _ Never Going Back Again _ by Fleetwood Mac, then the unmistakable  _ Adam’s Song  _ by Blink-182, and finally,  _ Sultans of Swing  _ by Dire Straits.   
  
“Wow,” Liam said with a smile. “You’re good, Theo.”   
  
“Nah.” Theo shook his head. “I just play a lot.”   
  
“No, you’re...really,  _ really  _ good.”   
  
“Thanks.”    
  
Theo stood and returned the guitar to it’s place against the desk. Liam watched, noting how gentle Theo was with the instrument, as though it were fragile, precious, and to him, it clearly was.   
  
“I…” Theo bit his lip. “Do you want to hear something?”   
  
“More? Yeah.” Liam nodded, smiling. He could lie in bed all night, watching, listening, as Theo played guitar naked.    
  
“Okay.” Theo bit his lip. “Just...okay.” Instead of picking the guitar back up, however, he grabbed his laptop and opened it. He didn’t remove it from the desk, but he tapped at the keys a few times, returning to the bed just as the music began to start.    
  
Liam recognized the unmistakable opening notes to Tracy Chapman’s  _ Fast Car _ played on an acoustic guitar, with something - a shaker, maybe a maraca, helping to keep the beat. After a few seconds, a smooth, mellow,  _ gorgeous  _ voice came in with the lyrics. Liam moved closer to Theo, leaning against him as he listened to the song. It was perfect - almost. During one of the verses, at the lyric “ _ You see my old man’s got a problem, he live with the bottle, that’s the way it is, _ ” the vocals broke a little, but somehow, that just added to the intensity of it.    
  
The cover was slowed down from the original, but it was beautiful, haunting, and Liam felt something funny in his chest as the song ended.    
  
“I thought you said you couldn’t sing,” he said softly.    
  
“I can’t.” Theo smiled. “That uh...that wasn’t me.”   
  
“Oh.” Liam frowned. “Who, then?”   
  
“Corey.”   
  
“Oh.” Liam paused. “ _ Oh. _ ”   
  
“Yeah.” Theo nodded.    
  
“And you were playing?”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Shit, Theo. You’re good. Both of you. I mean that.”   
  
“Yeah?”    
  
Liam wasn’t sure that he had ever seen anything close to insecurity in Theo before, but now there was something there, something vulnerable that he had never witnessed, and he accepted fully what he had been slowly realizing over the past few days. There were layers to Theo, things that he had never expected, things that he had never entertained.    
  
“Yeah.” Liam leaned in, kissing Theo’s bare shoulder.    
  
“What was that for?” Theo asked.    
  
“Nothing.” Liam shook his head.    
  
“Right.” Theo smiled, putting his arm around Liam. “Face it, you’re hot for me now that you know that I’m a musician.”   
  
“Bullshit.” Liam rolled his eyes.    
  
“Oh, fair, fair, you were hot for me before,” he teased.    
  
“Ugh, gross.”    
  
“You say that now, but earlier it was ‘oh, yes, Theo, god, fuck,  _ yes _ .’”   
  
“Shut up.” Liam shoved him gently.    
  
“Make me.”   
  
“Fine.” Liam moved on top of him, straddling him, kissing Theo deeply, a grin in place on his face.    
  
  
**JUNE 20TH** **  
** **  
** “So, when are you gonna tell me who you’re fucking?” Mason asked as they drove to the lake.    
  
“What?” Liam asked, surprised.    
  
“Okay, remember that thing where you can’t lie to me? Just don’t even try. You’ve got like, four hickies, and a dumb smile on your face. Classic Liam Dunbar for ‘I’m getting laid’. No one knows you better than me.”   
  
“Jesus, Mason!”   
  
“So, who is it?”   
  
“Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”   
  
“Oh god, Liam. Not Hayden...we talked about looping back to exes! It didn’t work the first time, it’s not gonna work the-”   
  
“It’s not Hayden.”   
  
“Oh.” Mason nodded. “Brett?”   
  
“God, no.” Liam shook his head. “I’m pretty sure he’s... _ something _ with Josh Diaz. I saw them holding hands at the pier the other day. It was...disgustingly domestic.”   
  
“I never saw that one coming…   
  
“Me neither. Pride, man. It’s like magic.”   
  
“Yeah, me and Corey, Brett and Josh, you and…”   
  
“Nice try.” Liam laughed.    
  
“Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll just have to assume it’s Theo then.”   
  
“What? Why would you assume that?” Liam asked. His tone was clipped, and the words poured out of his mouth quickly.    
  
“Oh...my god.” Mason pulled the car over. “Holy shit, dude, I was kidding, but it  _ is  _ Theo, isn’t it!”   
  
“No, that’s crazy!”   
  
“Again. You, lying to me? Doesn’t work.”   
  
“Fuck.”    
  
“Yeah. Big  _ fuck _ . Theo? How did that even happen?”   
  
“I don’t know,” Liam admitted. “But you were hanging out with Corey, and I ran into him one night, and we talked about how maybe we should try to get along since you and Corey seem serious, so I went over to his place. We got drunk, we got high, we were listening to music, next thing I know, we’re naked and he’s inside me.”   
  
“Jesus  _ Christ _ .”   
  
“Believe me,” Liam groaned. “I know.”   
  
“So what, you’re...dating?”   
  
“No, no. God no. It’s just sex,” Liam said quickly.    
  
“Is it...good sex?” Mason asked.    
  
“Can we stop talking about this please?” Liam begged.    
  
“Yeah, sure. After you answer my question,” Mason grinned, starting the car up again to get back on the road.    
  
“No.”   
  
“There is no point in you trying to dodge this.”   
  
“Fine, fuck, yes. The sex is good. It’s really fucking good, actually.”   
  
“That makes sense. He looks like he knows how to fuck.”   
  
“ _ Mason _ !”    
  
“What?” Mason asked. “He’s not my type, but he’s just got that look, you know? Like he’d know his way around a guy.”   
  
“He does,” Liam confirmed.    
  
“Well good for you, dude. If you’re gonna have a summer fling, it might as well be good sex.”   
  
“Cool. Yup. Moving on,” Liam said.    
  
“Fine, fair’s fair.” Mason smiled, eyes focused on the road.    
  
“Did you know he plays guitar?” Liam asked after a couple minutes.    
  
“Who, Theo?” Mason asked.    
  
“No, the Easter Bunny. Yeah, Theo.”   
  
“I thought we weren’t talking about it.”   
  
“Shut up.”   
  
“No, I didn’t know.” Mason shook his head.    
  
“Did you know Corey sings?” Liam asked as Mason pulled into the parking lot at the lake.    
  
“What?” Mason parked the car, looking at Liam.    
  
“Corey sings,” Liam said softly. “He sings and Theo plays.”   
  
“I...did not know that.” Mason frowned. “I had no idea.”   
  
“He’s really good, Mase.”   
  
“Corey?”   
  
“Yeah.” Liam nodded. “Well, both of them.”   
  
“I wonder why he wouldn’t tell me.”    
  
“Maybe he’s shy. When Theo played me one of their covers, it seemed like it wasn’t something a lot of people had heard before.”   
  
“Huh.” Mason shrugged. “I’ll have to ask him about it.”   
  
“Yeah.” Liam nodded. “So, swimming?”   
  
“Yeah, sure.” Mason nodded. “Theo Raeken. Wow. I kind of can’t believe it.”   
  
“It’s just sex.”   
  
“And listening to his music. That apparently is very private.”   
  
“I mean, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.”   
  
“Corey didn’t tell me about it, and we’ve been sleeping in the same bed every night for the last 16 days.”   
  
“I don’t know.” Liam shrugged. “Look, it’s nothing, okay? It’s just a summer fling. I’m off to Indiana in the fall, so even if it weren’t…”   
  
“Okay. Dropping it.”   
  
“So, you and Corey, huh? Every night in the same bed?”   
  
“Yeah.” Mason smiled. “I don’t know, is it crazy? It’s been like almost three weeks, but I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with him.”   
  
“Really?”   
  
“Yeah.” Mason nodded. “I don’t know, he’s just...he’s so beautiful, and sweet, and caring, and he’s been through a lot, but he’s still a kind person, and that can be hard, I think. Having shitty parents, and a bad lot in life, and turning out like he did? It speaks a lot to his character.”   
  
“And he makes you happy?” Liam asked.    
  
“Yeah.” Mason smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before.”   
  
“No.” Liam nudged him. “I don’t think you have.”   
  
**  
** **JUNE 25TH** **  
** **  
** “Theo? Are you awake?”   
  
“No,” Theo groaned, turning away from Liam.    
  
“Yes, you are.”   
  
“I’m trying not to be.” Theo sighed, rolling over and facing Liam, the moonlight casting over his body as they lay in Liam’s bed.    
  
“Okay, well...fine, but...what’s your scar?”   
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Theo said, attempting to turn away again, but Liam reached for him, stopping him.    
  
“Theo.”   
  
“Liam. Don’t.”   
  
“It’s from a heart transplant, isn’t it.”   
  
“What?” That got Theo’s attention, and he sat up, reaching over, turning on the bedside light.    
  
“I asked my stepdad-”   
  
“You asked your fucking stepdad about my scar?”   
  
“Well you wouldn’t tell me, and I was curious, and he’s a doctor. He said that a long, straight scar there could be from a transplant-”   
  
“You had no right to do that!” Theo got out of bed, pulling his boxers on. “I told you not to worry about it. It was none of your fucking business.”   
  
“Theo, I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind!” Liam frowned.    
  
“Well I fucking do. That’s my fucking business. Not yours.”   
  
“I was curious! I’m sorry!”   
  
“Why?” Theo snarled as he pulled his jeans on. “I’m not your fucking boyfriend, Liam. My scars aren’t your business!”   
  
“I just wanted-”   
  
“Wanted what?” Theo snapped. “To get my whole sob story, so you could pat yourself on the back for pity fucking the poor kid with the jacked up heart?”   
  
“No!” Liam shook his head. “Theo-”   
  
“Don’t.” Theo grabbed his shirt, pulling it on over his head.    
  
“Theo.” Liam got up, walking over to him, but Theo headed for the window.    
  
“Don’t fucking follow me, Dunbar,” Theo hissed as he slipped out of it, grabbing onto the tree outside.    
  
“Theo!”   
  
“Stop.” Theo turned away, quickly working his way down the tree, and disappearing into the night as Liam watched from his window.    
  
“Fuck.” Liam stared at the empty street, as though if he did so long enough, Theo would show back up. “Fuck!”    
  
He didn’t understand how things had gone so badly so quickly, but he willed himself to return to the bed, this time by himself. It wasn’t like it was anything more than sex. Sure, they’d talked a little, but it was mostly sex, just two guys killing time while they waited for summer to end.    
  
Except if it was just sex, if it didn’t matter, then why couldn’t Liam fall back asleep? 

**  
JUNE 26TH** **  
** **  
** “What the fuck, Dunbar?”    
  
Liam woke with a start to the sound of someone pounding on the window of his car, and he saw Theo glaring at him through it. He was wearing his  _ Scoops _ uniform, and he looked so angry that Liam couldn’t even pause to enjoy the novelty clothes on the other man.   
  
“Shit, shit.” Liam got out of the car quickly.    
  
“Are you fucking stalking me?”   
  
“No!” Liam shook his head. “I just...you left so fast last night, and I didn’t-”   
  
“How long have you been out here?”   
  
“I don’t know. All night.” Liam shrugged.    
  
“You slept in your car outside my house?”   
  
“I didn’t want to wake your parents up by knocking on the door.”   
  
“Nice to know you have  _ some  _ boundaries,” Theo snarled.    
  
“Theo, I’m  _ sorry. _ ”   
  
“I don’t give a shit, Dunbar. I have to go to work.”   
  
“Then why did you even bother to wake me up?” Liam countered.    
  
“Because you’re parking me in, you dumbass.” Theo gestured to Liam’s car, and sure enough, it was blocking half of the driveway where Theo’s beater car was parked.    
  
“Oh.” Liam bit his lip. “Cool.”   
  
“No,  _ not _ cool. Move your car, Dunbar.”   
  
“Not until you talk to me.”   
  
“There’s nothing to talk about.”   
  
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Theo. If you’d just talked to me-”   
  
“Don’t make this my fault.”   
  
“Okay, you’re right.” Liam bit his lip. “I just-”   
  
“Fine, you know what? You wanna know? I’ll tell you. And then you move your fucking car and get out of my life.” Theo folded his arms across his chest. “You’re right. It was a heart transplant. I was born with a congenital heart defect, and for a while the treatments were enough, but then they weren’t. My heart just never worked right, and by the time I was 12, it barely worked at all, except the poor kid from the bad neighborhood never gets higher on the transplant list,” Theo gulped. “I was supposed to die.”   
  
“But you didn’t, you-”   
  
“Will you shut  _ up _ ? I’m not done.” Theo stared at Liam, and for the first time, Liam realized that his eyes were wet with the beginnings of tears.    
  
“Okay,” Liam said quietly.    
  
“I had a sister.” Theo gulped. “She was a couple years older than me, and while I was in the hospital fucking dying, she was hanging out with her friends in the woods, and they got separated, and she got lost. She fell into a creek and got hurt, she couldn’t get out, she fucking froze to death, but the cold preserved her enough, and…” Theo gulped again, tears rolling down his cheeks.   
  
“And it’s her heart,” Liam finished.    
  
“Yeah.” Theo nodded, unable to look at Liam.    
  
“Theo, I’m...I had no idea.” Liam didn’t know what to say. He had never expected that. It was sad, and horrible, and he felt guilty that a part of him was glad that Theo’s sister hadn’t made it, because it meant that Theo had.    
  
“Yeah, cause I didn’t want you to,” Theo snapped. “We moved here to start over, and I didn’t want anyone -  _ especially  _ you - to feel sorry for me over some goddamned sob story. I don’t want your fucking pity, Liam. I don’t need you looking at me like I’m some pathetic-”   
  
“I don’t think you’re pathetic,” Liam said, cutting Theo off. “Do I feel sorry for you? Yeah, maybe a little, because what you’ve been through is fucking heartbreaking, but I’m  _ really  _ glad that you’re alive, Theo.”   
  
“You are?” Theo asked.    
  
“Yeah.” Liam nodded. “I am.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“I have no idea. I just am.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“Yeah.” Liam gulped, stepping back. “So I’ll uh...just move my car…”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
“So you can go to work.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Or…”    
  
“Or?”   
  
“I don’t know.”   
  
“Okay…”   
  
“So I’ll move the car.”   
  
“Sounds good.”   
  
Liam took his keys out of his pocket and headed for the driver’s side door of his car.    
  
“Liam, wait.” Theo moved after him, grabbing Liam’s arm.    
  
“Yeah?” Liam turned back around, facing Theo.    
  
“You’re really glad that I’m alive?”   
  
Liam didn’t say anything, he merely nodded, and less than a second later, found himself pushed up against the side of his car, Theo on top of him, kissing him like his life depended on it. For a moment, Liam froze, processing what was happening. And then he dropped his keys and put his arms around Theo, pulling him in close and kissing him back, using his lips to show Theo just how glad he was that the other man was there.   
  
“Fuck.” Theo gasped for air as he pulled back. “I’m gonna be late for work.”   
  
“Okay.” Liam nodded. “I’ll uh…” He bent down, grabbing his keys. “I’ll move my car.”   
  
“Yeah.” Theo bit his lip, smoothing down his shirt.    
  
“Except…I think maybe…”    
  
“What, Dunbar?”   
  
“I think maybe if you go to work right now, I’ll…”   
  
“You’ll what?”   
  
“I’ll lose my nerve.”   
  
“What the fuck are you talking about?”   
  
“Jesus!” Liam sighed. “I don’t know, I think...I think maybe I’m supposed to love you.”   
  
“What the hell does that mean?” Theo asked.    
  
“I don’t know!” Liam was exasperated.   
  
“Then why did you say it?”   
  
“Because I just...I don’t know, Theo! I feel different when I’m with you. I thought you were this huge jackass, and I judged you for like, all four years of high school, but it turns out you’re like a million things I never could have imagined, and I’m not in love with you, but I think I’m going to be, even if you won’t talk to me anymore, and I think that I’m  _ supposed _ to be.”   
  
“What? Supposed to be?”   
  
“Like, I don’t know. Fuck.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It just feels right. With you. I’ve been with other people before, but it’s never been like this.”   
  
“Oh.”    
  
“Oh god.” Liam gulped. “I’m...I totally misread this, I-”   
  
“You didn’t,” Theo said quickly. “You didn’t misread it. I don’t know if I’m  _ supposed _ to love you, or whatever the hell that even means, and right now, I think you might be kinda crazy, but…”   
  
“But?”   
  
“I’m glad I’m alive, too, and I’m not sure I ever really have been before.”   
  
“Jesus, Theo.”   
  
“I know.” Theo nodded. “I know, it’s dramatic, but it’s true. Since me being alive means Tara isn’t, I’ve never been totally comfortable with still being here, but being with you makes me glad that I am.”   
  
“So why’d you push me away?” Liam asked.    
  
“Because I thought if you knew the truth about me, you’d leave anyway.”   
  
“I wouldn’t have. There is nothing wrong with you, and I’m here. To talk to, to help you with everything that’s boiling inside of you.”   
  
“Okay, well I didn’t know that!”    
  
“Yeah, well. Now you do.”   
  
“Thank you.”   
  
“So...you’re maybe okay with me thinking that I’m supposed to love you?” Liam asked.    
  
“Yeah.” Theo nodded. “I am.”   
  
“Okay.”    
  
“Okay.”   
  
“So I’ll move my car.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
  
**JUNE 30TH** **  
** **  
** The Pride month kick off party at Sinema was nothing in comparison to the Pride month closing party.    
  
There was glitter everywhere, practically everyone was shirtless, and drunk, whether it be on alcohol, lust, love, or some combination of all of the above.    
  
Corey and Mason were curled up on a loveseat in the corner, practically on top of each other, sharing drinks, kissing, canoodling, and generally being sickeningly cute. This left Liam alone at the bar once again, beer in hand, eyes scanning the crowd. There were bodies everywhere, including Brett and Josh, both shirtless and rounding second base right there on the dance floor, not a care in the world.    
  
“Hey.”    
  
Liam turned as a voice spoke beside him.    
  
“Sorry I’m late.”   
  
“Ice cream emergency?” Liam asked with a smile as he turned his attention to Theo.    
  
“Something like that.”   
  
“Oh, shit, everything okay?”   
  
“It’s fine.” Theo smiled. “Come on, let’s dance?”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
Liam finished his beer in one gulp and set the bottle down on the bar before taking Theo’s hand. It was a little nerve-wracking, walking out onto the dance floor, into a sea of people, some of whom knew him, but not this side of him. Every other time Liam had been at Sinema, he had been on the outside looking in, but now, Theo was pulling him right into the middle of everything, and he was excited. Nervous, but excited.    
  
“I like your shirt,” Theo called over the music.    
  
“Oh.” Liam smiled, looking down at his black t-shirt. On the front, it had the phases of the moon in the colors of the bisexual flag, and the words  **“NOT A PHASE.”** “Thanks. You look good, too, did your emergency keep you from dressing for pride, though?”   
  
Theo was wearing a plain black tank over his jeans, and yeah, he looked hot as fuck, but everyone else was wearing pride shit.    
  
“About that.” Theo smiled, stepping back slightly. “Yeah, I’m proud to be gay, but that’s never been something I’ve wavered on. This, though?” He reached for the hem of his tank top, and pulled it off, revealing his scar, and his tattoo. “I wasn’t proud of this for a long time.” He bit his lip, tucking his shirt into the back pocket of his jeans. “I am now. Or at least I’m starting to be. I kept it bottled up for a long time, and I’m just starting to process it all, and deal with it, but you being there, listening? That’s the first step. There’s a lot still to get through with it, but...I’m not alone with this guilt, this grief, and I think I realize that now better than I did before. It may not be easy, but I’m going to find a way to live  _ with  _ it, with  _ her _ being a part of me, instead of in spite of it.”   
  
Liam reached out, hooking his fingers through Theo’s belt loops, pulling him close, NS kissing him softly.    
  
“I’m proud of  _ you. _ ”   
  
“Sap.”   
  
“Maybe.”   
  
“I-”   
  
“Wait, is that what I think it is?”   
  
The techno dance music stopped, replaced by heavy guitars, and opening notes that Liam recognized.    
  
“ _ I love everything about you that hurts, so let me see your moves, let me see your moves _ ,” Theo grinned, singing along to Patrick Stump’s voice as he moved closer to Liam.   
  
“Did you do this?” Liam asked, laughing.    
  
“Maybe.” Theo shrugged.    
  
“Who’s the sap now?”   
  
“Shut up.” Theo pulled Liam close, kissing him as they danced along to the song that was very out of place.    
  
The crowd didn’t seem to care, however, and even if they did, Liam wouldn’t have noticed. He was wrapped up in Theo as they danced close, pressed together.    
  
“I can’t believe you did this,” Liam said, his lips right up against Theo’s ear.    
  
Theo leaned in, kissing Liam’s jaw.    
  
“ _ It’s a strange way of saying that I know I’m supposed to love you _ ,” he whispered in Liam’s ear in time with the song.    
  
“ _ I’m supposed to love you _ ,” Liam whispered back.    
  
Theo pulled back, just a little, smiling at Liam, and Liam smiled back before leaning in, kissing Theo softly. Theo leaned in, resting his head against Liam’s shoulder, and Liam held him close. Maybe there was still a lot to figure out, and maybe it wouldn’t always be easy, but this was right, and there, in the middle of a mass of people, all they could see was each other.


End file.
